


The Banana Dolphin

by Teal_Rainbeau



Series: The Village It Takes [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cute Kids, Family Fluff, Gen, Lance (Voltron) is Good With Kids, Lance spoils his daughter, Older Lance, Single Parent AU, Single Parent Lance (Voltron), Slice of Life, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 08:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21296258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teal_Rainbeau/pseuds/Teal_Rainbeau
Summary: After refusing to go to sleep, Ava has Lance stay up and make her a dolphin from a banana...(A short story that I put together as a loose continuation of my Julance ficHidden From The Sun)
Relationships: Lance (Voltron) & Original Child Character(s)
Series: The Village It Takes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535177
Kudos: 9





	The Banana Dolphin

“His eyes have to be all black, so put some chocolate chips!”

“Alright, hold on little miss bossy pants!” Lance playfully rocked his head at her sassily.

This was what he got for putting his foot down on her having sweets before bedtime: a little girl with her arms folded angrily while grunting one-worded answers around the house. It was like peering into a miniature female version of himself twenty-five years ago. And though he put her to bed hours ago, her wound-up brain somehow thought it fitting to stand here in front of him instead of going to sleep. So here he was now, trying to make a dolphin out of a forty-nine-cent banana. Thank heavens that he had some art skills at his disposal. Too bad Ava was being such a tough critic of said skills tonight.

He heard her rapid pitter-patters coming from the pantry area and the loud crinkle of chocolate candies in an aluminum package. The bag landed next to his hand with a loud slap. He stopped mid-poke and opened it with his teeth and allowed two future dolphin eyes to spill into his palm.

“Here’s eye number one, and eye number two. Alright!” All Lance did was use some masking tape to make them both stick to the banana’s peel. He finally showed his craft to Ava as if fishing for attention from the teachers of childhood’s past.

“Papí, he’s supposed to be smiling!” Ava tittered with a twirl of her small body.

He smiled with a corner pout, “But…he is…”

He used a toothpick to carve a deep curve for the mouth, smaller upside-down arches for the eyes, and several tiny bonus triangles for his teeth. The only thing this little guy could never be was grey.

This whole endeavor was contingent upon Ava getting her little butt to bed, now that it was going on ten-o-clock.

“Can you see it now? He’s happy.”

Ava sat on her knees in a chair next to him, then rested her chin on her folded hands. She tilted her head to the side with a slight frown, “He _does_ look like him…”

Lance could detect a big fat “but” in that baby pitch of hers and reluctantly asked her what was wrong.

“I know what’s missing; his fins.”

Two triangles on the side for his fins, and a final triangle on his back for his flipper. There.

“How’s _that_ look?”

“Much better!” She drawled. “I like that he’s yellow, we should name him.”

“We’ll name him…”Dole-fin”!” Lance thought it was mega clever to use the company name as a pun, and Ava was still young enough to appreciate it with a zestful laugh spraying from her small being. Mission accomplished. “Alright, time for bed, mama.”

Ava held up her arms for a hug as they exchanged cheek kisses and goodnights. She climbed from her chair and started to her room, but the sound of her feet shuffling stopped, and Lance had to take a deep breath to stifle an eye roll.

“You’re not gonna eat Dole-fin while I’m sleep, are you?” She pouted, large plum eyes locked onto him.

He gulped, then took a glance at his new work of art, admiring the creativity, the ingenuity. With an elevated eyebrow he said, “Nope. But if you’re not snug as a bug by the time I count to three, I’m gonna snatch you up and bite your cheeks off!” He started the countdown with a playfully menacing march, receiving a high-pitched shriek from the child whose footsteps were rapidly scuffling across the carpet and swept away with a door slam.

With a smug grin, he made sure all the lights were turned off, and he dragged himself to his room.

“Dole-fin” remained on the kitchen counter for the next day.

.~.~.~.

Secretly, Lance woke up before Ava to figure out what to do for breakfast. It would have been nice to have some banana pancakes, ironically enough.

No matter what, “Dole-fin” was part of the family now, and that meant no using him for an early breakfast sacrifice. He really should’ve bought a bunch or something.

Yet the first thing he noticed about poor old Dole this morning made him yelp to the point where he clasped his mouth with both hands: Dole’s intricately-drawn toothpick features had since overripened into something more grotesque. His dolphin mouth and other features looked as though they were in the middle of bark-colored decomposition, chocolate eyes were long picked off by a fussy trail of black ants that congregated on and around the poor thing.

First, he darted to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a special blend of water and concentrated essential oils, spraying the spot until ants were dead. It was a recipe a friend of his late wife put together that killed and repelled ants without that strong chemical smell of some top-shelf fumigator. He would have to thank her for that with a wine basket or something.

Once that task was over with, he took the poor remains of Dole-fin and gave him a funeral down the garbage disposal. Finally, all ants were wiped up and paper towels tossed in the trash.

“_Mañana, papí.” _Ava announced with a slight skip to her step.

Lance spun around and posed with his elbow on the counter and legs crossed, “_Mañana, _baby.” He said with a hopefully natural smile.

“I wanted to show Dole-fin to Uncle Coran when we go to the park today…”

As the image of five minutes ago flashed to his psyche again, he softened his gaze on the small child standing in front of him with her lavender dolphin-themed pajamas and plush slippers. He had to tell her…

“Ohhhhh. Well, Dole-fin’s gone…he, uh, got a mommy dolphin to adopt him. So next time, he’ll be a real dolphin?” _Look at her, not the living room!_ “Yeah, he’ll be a real dolphin. For sure.”

“Really?”

“Yep, remember Pinocchio? How he became a real boy? It’s just like the movie…”

His daughter’s smile spread wide, eyes lost in a bit of scheming, “We have to go back to the store and buy more bananas! That way, more dolphin babies can have mommies!”

Lance praised her with a smile. “That’s a _genius_ idea!”

No! No it wasn’t!

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you enjoyed and thank you for reading ♡  
I was inspired by a Tumblr (or was it Pinterest) post about a guy who carved a happy face on a banana with something one night, then freaked out the next day because the banana had turned brown overnight and looked like something incredibly freaky.


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